BHUs, RHCs facing medicine shortage

MULTAN: The basic health units (BHUs) and rural health centres (RHCs) are facing acute shortage of medicines due to which patients are suffering. According to District Health Office (DHO), a notification regarding the purchase of essential medicines and surgical instruments for district and tehsil health institutions, issued in October last year by DG Health Lahore, which was yet to be implemented. It will take six to eight months to complete procedure for supplying medicines at BHUs, RHCs and those at district level like Shahbaz Sharif District Hospital, Fatima Jinnah Hospital and Civil Hospital, as it pursued lengthy procedure like issuing tenders, approval from different authority, securing quotations from concerned parties etc, the official sources said. When contacted, Drug Inspector Bosan Town Rao Sajid said that delay in supply of medicines happened during the interim government.

Punjab govt decides to expand e-credit scheme: The Punjab government Sunday decided to expand ongoing e-credit scheme to facilitate the small growers.

According to Agriculture Department spokesman here, in the first phase of the scheme, interest free loans were provided to over 300,000 small growers.

He informed that Rs 25,000 per acre interest free agriculture loan was being offered to growers for Rabi crops, adding that the provincial government had decided to increase it to Rs 30,000 per acre. He said that growers could get loan from Akhuwat, National Rural Support Programme and National Bank under e-credit scheme. He added for the purpose growers could registered themselves at the tehsil land record centre along with CNIC, cellphone number and land details without any fee.